The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Distributed mapping systems illustrate a variety of interactive features to accurately represent geographic areas. Users may interact with map features to indicate selecting a feature by placing another feature (e.g., a “drop pin”) on or near the selected feature to indicate a user selection of that feature. Past system relied on pointer actions using a mouse or other device to identify and select interactive map features. With the touch screen devices becoming more prevalent, a user often uses a fingertip to identify or select interactive features within a digital map display. However, a finger tip is inherently less precise than a mouse pointer. Varying fingertip size and other positional flaws in using a fingertip often result in unintended results such as the user selecting an interactive map feature he or she did not intend to select, unintentionally panning a viewed map page, and other problems.
When a user attempts to select a map feature (i.e., a “longpress”), the mapping application may “snap” to a nearby feature, such as a local business, if the coordinate at the center of the fingertip area on the touch screen is sufficiently close to the center of a feature. However, snapping actions sometimes result in placing a drop pin at a place too far away from where the user has longpressed. In another typical snapping action, past systems would drop the pin at the longpress location on the touchscreen, but have the user interact with a feature that is really located elsewhere, giving rise to unexpected and unwanted behavior.